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And Jammin Mitch Snow was bringing the charisma for the only night of his career.

I have to disagree w/ one thing Jed . . . last night's ring announcer was awesome. He looks/sounds like they plucked him from doing voiceover work at a game show, slipped him $75, and had him introduce the wrestlers.

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First time I've caught the AWA on ESPN Classic... Live Thoughts/Comments (12 PM airing).

"Limp... Wrist... Larry. That's hard to say three times fast. I'm not sure on the connotation." Just great... Ron says it with a legit cluelessness of the meaning behind the sign.

What amazes me is how "easy" old wrestling makes generating heat look vs. modern day wrestling. Zybysko stalls & stalls then gets hip tossed and body slammed and stalls some more for heat. Simple but effective. Also loved Larry holding the tights in the quick pins despite being in the headlock... just awesome subtleness and led to the held tights finish.

Also loved the variance in weights (Larry Z graphic says 249 but ring announcer says 252). Must've eaten a few cheeseburgers before coming through the curtain.

"Now with that size between somewhere 10 and 15 head" - Ron in relation to Boris Zhukov. Christ... you could quote this guy in the whole post.

Hah... "Playboy" Buddy Rose = 217(?) Pounds according to the graphic. Glad they included the question mark for authenticity.

More classic subtlness no longer seen in most wrestling as the two teams actually take a break to confer with their partners after Rose goes down to a victory roll for a close two count. Doug Somers openly laughing at Marty while holding a bloody Shawn by his hair a few feet away so Marty gets a good look at Shawn's crimson mask... awesome beyond telling. Also seeing Shawn's "comeback" up to the hot tag pretty much solely being right hands or lefts was fun.

Crowd literally getting to their feet with Marty teasing punching Sherri on the apron was a great visual. Marty also sports an impressive crimson mask, possibly outdoing Michaels in that department. Mayhem at the end as the ref goes down... Somers drops Michaels stomach first on a chair outside and another ref comes in with Rose/Somers beating up on a prone Jannetty until Greg Gagne & Alan West come in for the save. Great to see the Midnight Rockers lying on the outside together both bloody and battered until Michaels surges and tries unsuccesfully to ambush Somers before Rose & Somers scramble away.

Fun way to cap the show. Fun main event with punches largely being the whole match but used effectively. And to add fuel, Rose & Somers "broke" Jannetty's ribs in the carnage, awesome. Also Greg Gagne threatens Rose/Somers with the whole AWA coming after them if the Rockers aren't okay... did that ever happen? Would've been neat to see the heat generated with the whole federation turning against the Tag Champs for taking out the young scrappy babyface team.

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I have to disagree w/ one thing Jed . . . last night's ring announcer was awesome. He looks/sounds like they plucked him from doing voiceover work at a game show, slipped him $75, and had him introduce the wrestlers.

Yes! That guy ruled.

... and speaking of ring announcers, tonight we have the one and only Gary Michael Capetta at Super Clash III.

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Yeah we're in repeat territory at this point since they have already shown the SuperClash III stuff. Due to the power outages I didn't get to see much AWA this week, though mostly it sounds like shows that I've already seen or at least in the general area of 1986 that they have shown.

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I do remember alot of the SuperClash 3 card being aired before, but holy shit, I still enjoyed the last show they aired with stuff from it. Going back to the first TV title "win" of Greg Gagne (a countout victory over Adonis), I forgot that they basically repeated the shit at this show and had Gagne beat Ronnie Garvin by CO to regain the TV title (that was vacant upon some screwjob finish in a previous Gagne/Garvin match prior) on this show. Did Chicago ever hate Greg Gagne, wow. Serious heat during and especially after the finish for the poor guy. And then they show Nelson interviewing Verne Gagne, who does not only the ultimate selling and defending the idea of having his own son get the belt back in such lackluster fashion, but then goes to on and on about how great SuperClash was, and how we're all supposed to wait on baited breath for the next SuperClash. I think I already mentioned how horrible the card of SuperClash 4 was.

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They did another SuperClash flashback show and I don't think they aired most of these matches yet, that I recalled. God damn though, they do an interview with Greg Gagne and AGAIN the company tries to defend the lame CO win and title regaining of Gagne against Garvin at SuperClash. The heat was off the charts for that finish, and I guess Verne just didn't "get it" or something. Neither did Greg, apparently.

But the matches on this show were fun, they had Iceman Parsons v. Brickhouse Brown as well as Eric Embry v. Jeff Jarrett, both worth sitting through. Unfortunately, they didn't show Manny Fernandez/Wahoo strap match (although I think I saw it on an older show at one time or another) but Wahoo cut a hell of a promo all bloodied and beaten up. SST (with the most hilarious entrance music and wearing Jagermeister t-shirts) v. Michael Hayes and Steve "Do it to It' Cox was shown before, and re-aired as the show's main event, but still decent enough to show again.

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Lee Marshall had the line of the night during the Gagne/Garvin match. "Five minutes in and these wrestlers are already exhausted!" As if to imply that this match was going at a fierce pace. After Capetta's five minute announcement, they immediately went home to the CO finish.

The Guerreros match was fun. And always good to see The Iron Sheik.

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Caught last night the Lawler-Von Erich title vs. title match in Nashville that led up to their SuperClash match. It was not exactly five-star but it was pretty entertaining. I admit I marked out when both of them look at the ref when he tries to break them up, look back at each other and then knock the ref out and proceed to keep pounding on each other. And the end exchanges between the two were golden...

Lawler..."Hey, he's disqualified, right? In World Class, you lose the belt on a disqualification. I'm the champion!"

Von Erich..."Well, in World Class, we don't have any sissy rules like no piledrivers...I'm the champ!" I do remember Tennessee banning the piledriver, even though it was legal in both the AWA and WCCW.

On another note...anyone know if I can find footage of the Kerry-Colonel DeBeers match where DeBeers accidentally yanked off his boot and revealed the amputation that Kerry had tried to hide of his foot?

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Now they're back with Hennig as the heel champ, noone in particular really challenging him, and a Baron Vpon Raschke/T Joe Kahn feud that has been hilarious the last couple days with Larry Nelson going berserk during the interviews trying to sell the attacks....He comes off more goofy than ever.

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On Wednesday's show, there was a segment where Greg Gagne presented a clip of a match featuring Hogan and Ventura. Unfortunately my tv's having sound problems so I couldn't hear what he said about the match. Anyone see it?

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He just hyped the match before showing it. I assumed they found a match where Hogan got pinned but instead they just went to commercial before the match was over. Yet, they found the need to show the finish to the next week's Mat Classic of Von Raschke vs Adnan Al-Kaisse

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I've been a bit behind on these. Been watching a lot of the ones with the likes of "The Illustrious" Jonnie Stewart and The Trooper from 1990. Trooper and Zbyszko had a pretty decent match for the AWA Title (ended in a time limit draw...kind of a botched ending though). Also, the idea of Ox Baker being a manager for anyone is pretty hilarious. Hearing him rant during one of Trooper's matches was hilarious.

I also noticed a jobber named Jim Evans on a couple episodes...I know he went on to become semi-well known indy wrestler Trevor Adonis, who used to wrestle in promotions in the Midwest like GLCW and NAWF.

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Baron Von Raschke will use his "Louieville Sleeper". Recently had Rocky Mountain Thunder vs Crusher Krugel from 1988. About 14 seconds into the match RMT totally overpowers a clothesline, Krugel lands on his head. RMT then short jerks a body slam. Krugel appears to have had enough of this guys lack of talent and just leaves for a count out. The story behind the curtain would be interesting on this match. RMT just appeared way to green and dangerous to be out there. Not to mention the haircut.

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Thunder looked like crap. I saw one match where I think his finisher was supposed to be a big splash, but it looked like he drove his knees right into the guy's stomach. I can imagine a lot of guys not wanting to work with him.

Also, what was the deal with the bag and chain he was bringing to the ring?

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And the UWF now reappears in that timeslot the AWA left off. I wonder if they'll still do the AWA shows on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I enjoyed here a few weeks ago watching Stan Hansen vs. Curt Hennig when "The Lariat" had the World title.

I would like them to bring back World Class/USWA and Global footage since ESPN carried those shows also.

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They just aired an awesome (in a cheesy way) Nick Bockwinkel interview where he buries Stan Hansen for his un-manly no show, then showed a video set to "Roll over Beethoven", which Nick Bockwinkel says shows him beating some o the world's best, then proceeds to be 50 % jobber clips.....

But it did show Nick doing the awesome elbow that I had only ever seen Bobby Eaton used, where he faced away from his opponent, grabbed his own wrist, and used it to propell his elbow into his opponent.

Then in true AWA fashion they show Stan hansen as world champ next, dispite just airing a segment burying him for leaving the promotion.

Awesome.

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Baron Von Raschke will use his "Louieville Sleeper". Recently had Rocky Mountain Thunder vs Crusher Krugel from 1988. About 14 seconds into the match RMT totally overpowers a clothesline, Krugel lands on his head. RMT then short jerks a body slam. Krugel appears to have had enough of this guys lack of talent and just leaves for a count out. The story behind the curtain would be interesting on this match. RMT just appeared way to green and dangerous to be out there. Not to mention the haircut.